Katherine Maltby, Ph.D.

Kat is a social scientist in the Integrated Systems Ecology Lab, where her research primarily focuses on examining how fisheries are affected by climate change and how these systems can adapt. Drawing on social-ecological systems thinking, she works to explore how people perceive and respond to climate-driven changes, what affects their ability to do so, and what this means for the resilience of fisheries systems. Kat’s work spans many social scales and involves working with people including individual harvesters, supply chain actors, communities, and decision-makers. Her broader interests include understanding social wellbeing, considering the value of holistic, integrated approaches to ocean management and governance issues, and how other challenges aside from climate change shape the lives of people who live and work on the coast.

Before coming to GMRI, Kat obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Exeter in the UK after which she worked as a marine climate change scientist, on a range of national and international projects, at the UK Government’s Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science. Enjoying interdisciplinary approaches, she has experience in using both ecological and social methodologies to examine climate change impacts and adaptation in a range of fisheries and contexts in the UK, Caribbean, Middle East, and Northeast US.